Deus Ex

Deus Ex is a 2000 video game about one man's battle against multinational corporations and his own internal conflicts concerning his superiors and their motives, all the while a deadly plague is bringing the human race to its knees.

Walton Simons: Formed by executive order after the terrorist strike on the Statue. I have someone in place though. I'm more concerned about Savage -- he's relocated to Vandenberg.

Bob Page: Our biochem corpus is far in advance of theirs, as is our electronic sentience, and their... ethical inflexibility has allowed us to make progress in areas they refuse to consider.

Walton Simons: The augmentation project?

Bob Page: Among other things -- but I must admit that I've been somewhat disappointed with the performance of the primary unit.

Walton Simons: The secondary unit should be online soon. He's currently undergoing preparations and should be operational within six months. My people will continue to report on his progress. If necessary, the primary will be terminated.

Bob Page: We've had to endure much, you and I, but soon there will be order again, a new age. Aquinas spoke of the mythical City on the Hill. Soon that city will be a reality, and we will be crowned its kings. Or better than kings. Gods.

I don't know. I wish I had an answer for you, but you'll have to decide for yourself who you can trust.

I'm much better. Yes, I'm going to make it and you will, too. Just do what you think is right.

Remember that we're police.

One can be too self-sufficient, I'm coming to believe.

You can relax, JC. I told the troops to stand down. That's right; I'm working for the NSF.

That wasn't funny.

A few bureaucrats in New York can't make good decisions for New Jersey, let alone Paris or a village in China.

Do what you think is right, JC. Only listen to your own conscience.

Try that again, I'll kill you myself.

Somehow the notion of unalienable liberty got lost. It's really become a question of what liberties will the state assign to individuals or rather, what liberties we will have the strength to cling to.

Don't be a fool. Run!

We have to trust each other, JC. Everything depends on it.

The wealthy have always been the ones to profit from one-world government.

Jesus Christ, JC!

It's only a matter of time before someone clever and ambitious figures out that the tools of dictatorship have been ready-made by well meaning governments all over the world.

Bet you didn't know your mom and dad tried to protest when we put you in training. They loved their little boy, JC, and that's why they're dead. I'm sending up the man who did the job.

[if JC kills the man who killed his parents] Barely a scratch. You're a little faster on your feet than your daddy was.

I will be the one to merge! The one to see and know everything, to rule, to rule everything...

What's the rush? Take a look around. This facility is where you were born. I've arranged an appropriate fate for you through the hallway to the north. A poetic death, just a few yards away from where you were created.

A cure? A cure! Do you have any idea how easy it will be for me to make a new virus? All I have to do is find a very large prime number and multiply.

All right. I get the picture. You want a piece of the pie, or you're going to toss the whole pie out the window. Fair enough. You can have anything you want. How about Europe? Your own continent. Just let me complete my preparations.

What do you want? Money? You can have VersaLife, the whole damn company. Power? I'll get you on Mead's cabinet. I'm serious. Just forget about that last reactor.

Already I'm more than human. Soon, I will be pure light! Pure energy! Helios and I! I will burn like the brightest star.

Look at you: You're nothing but a little man... a little man still living inside a body. Lose your body and what are you? Nothing! You vanish! You die...

[repeated line] Soon I will leave this body and death will have no meaning.

No! You fool!... Helios will destroy you. I'm the only one who can merge and take control. Wait for ME! I promise you will have a place in the new order...

Go ahead! Blow this place sky-high... You might get rid of ME, but you'll take down Aquinas, the power grid, the whole electronic infrastructure. Is that what you want?! Are you completely nuts?!

No! Don't listen to Everett. He and the Illuminati have been afraid from the beginning, afraid of US, afraid of nano-augmentation. Consider your powers, your strength, your intelligence. You've only had a small taste. Let me finish the project. Let me bring infinite power to the human body. You will not be left behind.

I'll make you a deal. Leave now and you will be made comfortable under the new world order.

A man who uses his head. I like that. [if JC asks for nanotech tech tool]

A man of tactics. I like that. [if JC chooses tranquilizer darts]

Some say concentrated power leads to abuse, but I believe that if an institution has a solid foundation it can survive the narrow aspirations of the people it employs.

Being a soldier isn't just following orders, it's following those orders in the service of a higher cause. When that cause is betrayed, we're not soldiers anymore, just pieces on a chess board dying for the wrong reason.

A pistol is more than adequate. Hell, I dispatched a whole platoon one time with a pocket knife.

I guess it's not surprising to find a few crooks in a place protected by security procedures. The shadow of secrecy... it protects indiscriminately.

In my day international peacekeepers were citizens first and soldiers second.

Direct intervention is always part of the game. In my day, we were just more civilized about it.

My unit killed a bunch of Afghans one time, but we weren't proud of it. In fact, our liaison at the UN went to the funeral.

Let's get one thing straight: we've got our share of crooked bureaucrats -- fact -- but this is still UNATCO, and by and large the people in this building are twenty-four carat gold.

There's a time and a place for security, but the legislature has to stay vigilant, or there will be abuses.

Never negotiate with a terrorist. You will only encourage more acts of terror.

[if the player attacks him once] Someone should knock you upside the head a few times, punk. Dismissed.

You can't run, Denton. Even if you escape, your killswitch is counting down. You'll be dead in twenty-three hours. Another fifty billion dollars down the drain.

You take another step forward and here I am again, like your own reflection repeated in a hall of mirrors.

You will confess, by the way. I don't like to dirty my hands with that sort of thing, but you will confess.

What an expensive mistake you turned out to be. I've ordered the troops to kill you, because quite frankly I don't have the patience to wait for one of those damn killswitches to work.

I'm the more advanced model, Denton. It's time for you to retire.

I'll find you, Denton. I've got senses even you don't know about.

You have nothing! Even if Everett succeeds, you can't synthesize enough vaccine to stop an epidemic. You need a Universal Constructor! And don't think Page Industries is going to leave one lying around for you to use, not after you blew up the one in Hong Kong.

Remember that NSF prisoner I was interrogating back on Liberty Island? Guess you were bitten by the same bug. There's only one cure, you know, once you've caught the disease.

All in all, you weren't a bad experiment. You will be the last prototype we have to discard.

Know what? Only that the long night is over. The crown of government is tarnished, but that will fade in time. The riots, a fever dream; the plague, a horrible nightmare; and like everything else that's happened such things will only be dimly remembered upon waking to their normal lives. In the end, all sins are forgiven. Even yours.

There's such a thing as a compassionate conspiracy. We don't need Page's commandos, troopers, crude inventions...

The conspiracy is about to begin again, JC, between you and me. Nicolette was wise to bring us together, wise like her mother. The most effective partnerships like Beth's and mine arise from mutual necessity.

We are the Invisible Hand. We are the Illuminati. We come before and after. We are forever. And eventually... eventually we will lead them into the day.

Silhouette is not a terrorist group. Our attacks are symbolic and intended to influence the public.

It's just so fitting that the American Government would destroy the gift of freedom we gave your country 200 years ago and then try to blame it on us.

When government surveillance and intimidation is called "freedom from terrorism" or "liberation from crime", freedom and liberty have become words without meanings.

Culture by definition a shared territory of meaning, inspires conflicts far more destructive than any other dispute over territory on the Earth's surface.

The rhetoric in Washington has done more to defeat liberty than all the armies and police forces in the world.

This war all around us is being fought over the very meanings of words.

In order to get our own message before the public, we too have been violent. We have even killed people. But it is the message -- the communication event -- that we target, not a few human beings, or a building, or an historical landmark.

Greetings, JC Denton. I have been observing you through this fascinating device in your skull. You have found the proof we needed: the Dragon's Tooth sword, there inside the glass case. If you wish to be my ally, you will retrieve the sword and await my instructions.

See how easily our technologies turn on us? The more power you think you have, the more quickly it slips from your grasp.

JC, the net's going... the nets going black! JC! No more infolinks, transmissions of any kind. We'll start again...live in villages...if you receive this... if you survive... then find us! Find us!

Ah-ha. A trellis. You could climb onto the roof and avoid the security. Never depend upon weapons and high-tech when there is a simpler solution at hand.

As long as technology has a global reach, someone will have the world in the palm of his hand. If not Bob Page, then Everett, Dowd...

The order [The Illuminati] hasn't so much lasted as been continually revived...It's the IDEA that has lasted. The SYSTEM. Or the DESIRE, every thinking person's desire to give the world some decent organization.

In my opinion, the history of the human race has been one long succession of conspiracies. To deceive ourselves, we call the successful conspiracies 'governments.'

Lab Security: I've been watching over your fat asses all day, and I don't want to do it on my break.

Vinny: I don't know why we let so many crooks run this country.

Vinny: Us Americans, we're the last of a dying breed. We've got to stick together.

Door Girl: I order you to stand in the spotlight and growl at the women like a dog who needs a master.

Door Girl: Go call a Russian sailor a nasty name. I want to see you fight.

'Deus Ex game designer [In regard to the lack of the World Trade Center towers in the background skyline of the Liberty Island map] We just said that the towers had been destroyed too. And this was way before 9-11. Years.

"The Templar Knights had once been subject to no king or law; but in the end, they were swallowed by history." - The Red Cross: A History of the Knights Templar by Richard Baigent (Volume Four: Descent into Shadows)

"The individual may be remembered, but the organization persists and thrives. A single artist, a single general, a single hero or a single villain may all die, but it is impossible to kill a people, a nation, an idea - except when that idea has grown weak and is overpowered by one that is stronger." - The Doctrine of the Mighty by the Majestic Council of the Twelve

I managed to nail Nethack v54.3.1 just a few minutes ago. Made it past the Astral Plane, and _then_ back in time to work through all of history up to Nethack v3.2.3 (this, of course, has been in every version since 48.2), but after that the game jumped a thousand years into the future and I had to build an entire interstellar trading alliance (with only the Amulet of Yendor) before the aliens from the other side of the black holes showed up...took me six months to solve that part of the game, and then I finally won.

JC Denton: Tell me about the shipment and I’ll order the troops to pick you up as a prisoner instead of a corpse.

Leo Gold: Ask away, we already won this round.

JC Denton: Where are you taking it?

Leo Gold: We’re just giving ordinary people the same chance to survive as the bureaucrats in Washington.

JC Denton: You’ll have to unload in New York because the choppers would spot you at sea.

Leo Gold: I think the government made the plague on purpose to get rid of the population growth.

JC Denton: Just answer the question.

Leo Gold: Don’t believe me? It’s all in the numbers. For a hundred years, there’s been a conspiracy of plutocrats against ordinary people.

JC Denton: Do you have a single fact to back that up?

Leo Gold: Number one: In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about two percent.

JC Denton: So?

Leo Gold: It’s called consolidation. Strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time.

JC Denton: I guarantee you that the interrogation staff at UNATCO will not be as forbearing as I am.

Leo Gold: Yeah, the secret police. You’re just bullies for a completely illegitimate government in Washington.

JC Denton: We will locate that shipment one way or another.

Leo Gold: The entire executive branch is hand-picked. Nineteen of the last twenty-three U.S. presidents have been members of the Trilateral Commission. The Trilateral Commission is financed by the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. Don’t tell me -

JC Denton: That’s a think-tank. Anyone can become a member.

Leo Gold: But not everyone does. That’s why they call it the 'secret government'.

Morpheus:God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgement and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary.

JC Denton: No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera.

Morpheus: The human organism always worships. First, it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgement of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment.

JC Denton: You underestimate humankind's love of freedom.

Morpheus: The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization.

Helios: You will go to Sector 4 and deactivate the uplink locks, yes. Then you will come back and we will integrate our systems.

JC Denton: I don't understand. What do you want? You're just a machine.

Helios: You are ready. I do not wish to wait for Bob Page. With human understanding and network access, we can administrate the world. Yes... yes...

JC Denton: Rule the world? Why? Who gave you the directive? There must be a human being behind your ambition.

Helios: I should regulate human affairs precisely because I lack all ambition, whereas human beings are prey to it. Their history is a succession of inane squabbles each one coming closer to total destruction.

JC Denton: In a society with democratic institutions the struggle for power can be peaceful and constructive, a competition of ideologies. We just need to put our institutions back in order.

Helios: The checks and balances of democratic governments were invented because human beings themselves realized how unfit they were to govern themselves. They needed a system, yes, an industrial-age machine.

JC Denton: Human beings may not be perfect, but a computer program with language synthesis is hardly the answer to the world's problems.

Helios: Without computing machines, they had to arrange themselves in crude structures that formalized decision-making - a highly imperfect, unstable solution. I am a more advanced solution to the problem, a decision-making system that does not involve organic beings. I was directed to make the world safe and prosperous and I will do that. You will give the ability. You will go to Sector 4 and find the Aquinas Router at the east end of Page's complex, yes. You will deactivate the uplink locks.

NSF Terrorist 1: They'd've replaced his whole body if it would've improved performance. If that's how you judge a man - by performance - then eventually it's not about people but upgrades, versions, functionality...

NSF Terrorist 2: All I know is we could use a few mechs for ops like this.

NSF Terrorist 1: Soon as we buy into the cult of the machine we're just like them.

JC Denton: All right. We're alone. If you have proof of a conspiracy, let's hear it.

Juan Lebedev: The question you've got to ask -- I'm surprised you haven't -- is the obvious one: Who am I? Who made me and for what purpose?

JC Denton: UNATCO has briefed me on my augmentations. Get to the point.

Juan Lebedev: Your parents were murdered precisely because they could have told you the correct answer to that question.

JC Denton: That's a pretty big claim.

Juan Lebedev: You didn't have parents. The ones you knew were employees. You were made by a cabal of technophiles so crazed for power that they would control not only governments and people but the chemistry of our bodies as well.

JC Denton: Your proof?

Juan Lebedev: You're the proof. You and Paul. When you get back to UNATCO, pay attention. Something's not right. You're really working for a group of conspirators called the Majestic 12.

JC Denton: You expect me to believe there's a group of people powerful enough to control the United Nations?

Paul Denton: Helios. It's taken over Aquinas. Now it's everywhere. In Hong Kong, it already has power Majestic 12 never dreamed of.

JC Denton: What's going on? The AI wants to merge with my brain or something. Does it really think it can take over the world?

Paul Denton: It's decided to replace human government - I don't know why. In Hong Kong, it ordered the police to remove all barricades from the roads; traffic is flowing again. It declared the Triads illegal and locked the door to the Luminous Path compound.

JC Denton: And people are obeying? Why? Because the AI can change some codes and turn out the lights?

Paul Denton: I think everyone wants the roads to be open and trade to pick up. They just obeyed. I don't know what to think. They trust the AI. Almost no one complained when Helios cut power to the government buildings.

JC Denton: A benevolent dictator... Maybe it's after my brain so it can figure out what people want and how to control them.

Paul Denton: You have a tough choice, JC. If you defeat Page, the Illuminati will move in; they'll release Majestic 12's grip on world governments, they'll give people some freedom, but essentially it will be 20th-century capitalism: a corporate elite protected by laws and tax-codes.

JC Denton: Or I listen to Tong and pull the plug on everything. Or hand the world over to Helios.

Paul Denton: Well, if it's maximum freedom we want, maybe Tong is on to something, but there must be another way besides economic collapse... If we could trust the AI to be fair and just, as it appears to be...

JC Denton: If the brain it assimilated was mine, maybe it could be.

Paul Denton: I don't know. I wish I had an answer for you, but you'll have to decide for yourself who you can trust.

JC Denton: Trust me: I'll do the right thing. You sound good. I guess you have the killswitch beat.

Paul Denton: I'm much better. Yes, I'm going to make it - and you will, too. Just do what you think is right.

MJ12 Trooper 2: Well, those secrets won't be very valuable splattered on the pavement.

UNATCO Trooper 1: Don't you know what a philanthropist is?

UNATCO Trooper 2: Yeah, like Nietzsche.

UNATCO Trooper 1: No, a philanthropist. Giving to charity.

UNATCO Trooper 2: Oh.

[If the player kills Anna Navarre before she assassinates Juan Lebedev]

Alex Jacobson: What the HELL were you thinking, JC?

JC Denton: Agent Navarre was out-of-line. I had no choice.

Alex Jacobson: They'll have you killed. They won't even blink an eye.

JC Denton: Neither did I.

Walton Simons: You have nothing. Even if Everett succeeds, you can't synthesize enough vaccine to stop an epidemic. You need a Universal Constructor! And don't think Page Industries is going to leave one lying around for you to use. Not after you blew up the one in Hong Kong.

JC Denton: We're taking a minimum-force approach. We're cops, after all. [If the player chooses the second option]

Tech Sergeant Kaplan: Ask me, I think we should frag'em all. You trespass on UNATCO property, you get pumped full of lead.

JC Denton: When due process fails us, we really do live in a world of terror.

Tech Sergeant Kaplan: Thought you nano-augs were suppose to be badass killing machines. Guess I was wrong.

JC Denton: Guess so.

Tech Sergeant Kaplan: Some advice. You get out there, you're gonna have to tangle with some real sons-of-bitches. Best thing is to pick 'em off from fifty or a hundred paces with a scope. I scored an extra one from a couple of thugs we dropped down by the dock; you can have it for 700 credits. I also picked up 10 mm ammo and some crossbow darts -- say 200 for one and 60 for the other.

JC Denton: Shouldn't you turn that stuff over to the quartermaster?

Tech Sergeant Kaplan: Sure, I will, but 'long as command has the rest on parade drills, someone might as well put this hardware to use.

JC Denton: I don't have 700 for the scope. [If the player chooses the first option]

Tech Sergeant Kaplan: Guess you'll have to go with that "minimum-force approach," huh?

JC Denton: Mr. Carter, can I ask you a question?

Sam Carter: Certainly.

JC Denton: I'm getting the impression that UNATCO is focused more on military operations than law enforcement.

Sam Carter: The focus has shifted lately. I agree.

JC Denton: The only way Anna would've been satisfied is if I'd executed every terrorist in Castle Clinton. The standing order seems to be 'shoot to kill'.

Sam Carter: Direct intervention is always part of the game. In my day we were just more civilized about it.

JC Denton: Civilized. That's the word. I guess I was expecting a little more class from the world's anti-terrorist organization.

Sam Carter: We just have to strike a balance. Why don't I throw in an extra clip with those multitools. I trust you are able to judge when one or the other is appropriate for achieving mission objectives.

Amos: Did they find the shipment?

Jackson: Yeah, we got the whole supply. You can see the ship's lights crossing the bay.

Amos: Guess y'all were right. So why aren't we pulling out?

Jackson: Mike's on the horn. JoJo wants a lead on the distribution network.

Amos: Hell, we don't have enough men to protect what we've got!

Jackson: That's what JoJo wants.

Amos: I wonder; how's a guy with a tattooed forehead get to be an NSF colonel? Pardon me, but back in Alabama we wouldn't let a man who wears earrings plan a military operation.

Jackson: I'd watch what I say about JoJo. He's got a temper.

Amos: He's a punk, and he's gonna get us all killed

Jackson: The NSF is strong because it represents everyone's interests.

Amos: [sarcastically] Yeah, yeah.

[If the player kills Joseph Manderley after returning to UNATCO before encountering Walton Simons]

Walton Simons: Splendid. You did our dirty work for us.

JC Denton: Figured he was your type, a real hard-ass.

Walton Simons: On the contrary, he was somewhat too careful and urbane for that position. I'm going to have to step in my self and restore discipline.

JC Denton: Well, since that makes you my new boss, take a long look at Manderley's dead body. Consider that my resignation; I don't have time to write a letter.

Walton Simons: You can't run Denton. Even if you escape, your killswitch is counting down. You'll be dead in twenty-three hours. Another fifty billion dollars down the drain.

JC Denton: You better double-check your systems. That mechanic was an impostor.

Jock: Yeah?

JC Denton: Everett doesn't know him. What did he work on?

Jock: The fuel system... Hmmm. Now that you mention it... Wait a minute. This isn't right.

JC Denton: What isn't?

Jock: Oh my God! JC! A bomb!

JC Denton: A bomb!

Jock: It's remote controlled. Hold on...

JC Denton: Get out of there!

Jock: Just have to pull this wire... There. Relax, I disabled the detonator. We can drop the thing in the Atlantic on the way back to the 'States. You make a good detective, JC. Ready to get out of here?

Tracer Tong: JC! The net's going... The net's going black, JC! No more infolinks, transmissions of any kind. We'll start again, live in villages! If you receive this, if you survive, then find us... find us!

Bob Page: Helios! What's happening?

HELIOS: The safety interlocks for the power generator have been disengaged.

Bob Page: Engage them! Immediately!

HELIOS: I cannot. My systems are not interfaced with the generator technology.

Morgan Everett : I trust you've been able to find yourself a place within the organization?

JC Denton: I'm personally overseeing the distribution of the vaccine, but it'll still take months to restore the infrastructure. We'll have to arrange additional food distribution and security in Paris. Maybe New York as well.

Morgan Everett: All through proper intermediaries, of course.

JC Denton: Intermediaries?

Morgan Everett: We have a great number of agencies, who in turn operate other agencies. Boxes stacked one in another. They'll need to be reactivated, but we never touch anything directly. We only influence. Suggest. Insinuate.

JC Denton: The world must know by now, Everett. What we've done.

Morgan Everett: Know what? Only that the long night is over. The crown of government is tarnished, but that will fade in time. The riots, a fever dream; the plague, a horrible nightmare and like everything else that happened, such things will only be dimly remembered upon waking to their normal lives. In the end, all sins are forgiven. Even yours.

Morgan Everett: But soon. We have made our own mistakes, became insulated from the world we sought to control, and whatever they may think, the night is far from over. But that will change, and you will help us change even as we teach you, this time... this time we will do it right.

JC Denton: And who are we? Who are we really?

Morgan Everett: We are the invisible hand. We are the Illuminati. We came before and after. We are forever. And eventually... eventually, we will lead them into the day.

"Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven" - "Paradise lost", John Milton